What is niacin, a drug or a vitamin?
Niacin is nicotinic acid, one of the B vitamins. It’s found in many foods, especially whole grains and milk products. As a vitamin, you need only about 15 milligrams of niacin a day. However, when used to lower cholesterol niacin is used in what are called pharmacological levels rather than in vitamin amounts. One positive side to niacin is that it’s the least expensive of all cholesterol lowering medications available, although the drug does have a high rate of side effects. The pharmacological levels can range from a few hundred up to 6,000 milligrams per day. If you take 100 milligrams, the only side effect you may experience is some flushing and warmth for a few minutes (this dosage is too low to lower blood cholesterol). When you are taking 1,000 to 6,000 milligrams a day, the rate of side effects is very high. The minimum dose for any real effect on cholesterol is about 1,000 milligrams. One usually starts with 100 milligrams (or a few hundred milligrams), slowly increasing t...